Raven's Daughter
by Crumb
Summary: Set on a Wendigo and Uktena controlled island off the west cost of Canada, Woofy (a Wendigo turned Gnawer) seeks revenge for her sister while avioding her former pack. Title due to spirit parent merit. Unfinished. Please R&R.


Author's note: Bone Gnawers, Fomori, Black Dog Game Factory, and any other W:tA related materials are property of White Wolf Games. No infringement intended. Woofy/Lenore, Jesus, and Ashley de la Rosa, Eden, Rebecca, and Jacob Oriel, and any other characters not derived from Whitewolf directly are mine, and cannot be used without my permission. Please just ask if you want to borrow them. This story skips around in tiem quite a bit; I know it can be confusing. Sorry, that's the way I like it. Please R&R.  
  
~  
  
"Hello?"  
  
"Is this Lenore?"  
  
"It ain't Jesus or Ashley. Hi Jacob."  
  
"Lenore, I can't find your sister."  
  
"Come again?"  
  
"She's been gone for three days."  
  
~  
  
Eden Oriel-John sighed heavily as her car died, and hit the dashboard soundly. "Damn it, car." A bitter frown crossed her pretty face and she shoved the old thunderbird into park, then wrapped her fingers tightly around the steering wheel and turned the key a few times. "Come on car… please… you know I love you." The car rumbled to life again after a few tries, and Eden pulled forward, sighing contently. She always sweet-talked her old car when it was acting up; it was something Lenore had done, and their mother before them. Eden glanced around the surrounding forest, and started to smile again. The woods always reminded her of her family, and she wanted to get something for her sister, who was planning to visit.  
  
~  
  
The flight from Arizona to Alaska had been a long one, and the wait for the ferry to the islands had seemed even longer. Rebecca had tried to calm her cousin at first, but gave up in the second hour of the flight to play with Ashley, Woofy's son.  
  
On the ferry she had stood, frowning, with her arms crossed across her chest, deep in thought. Ash held on to the hem of his mothers cloak with one hand, and wrapped his tiny arm around her calf as he always did, and stared out at the sea with a look of awe. Rebecca sat beside him, and pointed out to a whale that was sounding near the boat. He watched his cousin carefully, learning the sign for the new word before burying his face against his mother shyly. Woofy scooped him up when the boat landed, wrapping her wool cloak around him so he was completely hidden, except for his face.  
  
"Ready to go and find you aunt Eden, munchkin? And meet grand-uncle Jacob?" Ash nodded minutely and Woofy laughed for the first time in several very uncharacteristic hours. Rebecca smiled a little, noticing that the baby relaxed at the familiar sound.  
  
~  
  
The car died again as Eden braked to turn. She pounded the dash again, her irritation increasing, and got out, needing some fresh air to calm her tattered nerves. Eden popped her back and neck, and leaned against the hood, and listened to the motor tick and make its little familiar noises. She lifted her head after a moment, and worried her lower lip. Usually this part of the woods was full of wildlife, but today it was still, and very quiet except for a few, distant, echoing shouts that normally Eden wouldn't have noticed. The bellow of one of the islands oversized black bears made her tense and press back against the vehicle nervously. She wasn't afraid of the animals normally, they kept their distance and she kept hers, but both the animal's roar and the shouts seemed to be heading toward her. To compound it all a second bear answered the first.  
  
~  
  
Woofy paced Jacob's living room, with her hands held behind her back. She bobbed her head a little with each step, and Jacob couldn't help but wonder if that trait was inherited or adopted. "Jacob, exactly what part of the instructions I gave you escaped you?" Woofy sat down quickly in front of her uncle and frowned at him, with her head rested on her good hand. She had left Eden in his care when their mother had died, because she didn't trust Eden's father.  
  
"I can't watch her every minute, Lenore, besides, she was just going out to the woods, and she knows her way around."  
  
"Apparently not." Woofy scowled and stood up again, brushing herself off as if to remove herself form blame. "Which way did she go, and what's the easiest way to avoid Eagle Claw?" She referred to her old pack, who still wanted her back so she could take her mother or her aunt's place, and have Raven's blessing returned to them.  
  
~  
  
The first shots she heard made Eden cringe. She turned back to her car and tried to open it. "Oh no… don't do this now!" Eden whispered harshly as she tugged at the handle hard, and gave up to circle the car. She let out a small groan as she found the passenger side locked, and began to rummage her pockets for her spare keys. Eden dropped down at the nearby report of a gun, and rolled under her car. There was no hunting here, and no one in her right mind would go after a Haida Gwaii black bear. If they were poaching, and crazy enough to be chasing the bears down, then a witness wouldn't be appreciated much. Eden pulled her gun out of its hiding place, Woofy was adamant about her carrying it at all times, but she'd never needed it before.  
  
~  
  
Woofy turned over the spent shell casings and stood up. Rebecca had identified the tracks of Eden's car, and was now snaking around the woods, sniffing the ground and puzzling over some bear tracks. "Don't go far, they're still here." Woofy didn't need to speak above her normal volume as long as Rebecca was in her range of vision. Woofy put her hands on her hips and looked again at the tracks, which just ended, but there was no car at the end. She turned slowly in a circle, her face down, and then walked toward the nearest tree, which she climbed easily. The birds attempted to scatter, but Woofy caught one in her hand and held it gently. "Have you seen a girl here, in the last few days? In a big green car?"  
  
The bird screeched a little, in protest of being caught, but seemed to settle when Woofy spoke to it. "The bears! She was helping the bears!" Though the animal had calmed slightly its voice was shrill and sounded panicked.  
  
"Calm down, I won't hurt you, tell me where she is." Woofy released the bird, and let it perch on her hand.  
  
~  
  
Eden saw the man's feet from under the car, circling quietly. She had watched in a daze as men and bears had circled around her vehicle. The bears went first, pursued by people in black army boots. One of them had stopped, and it made Eden nervous, as he was obviously looking at the car suspiciously.  
  
Her fingers tensed on the trigger, and Eden closed her eyes tightly, wishing Woofy or her mother was with her. They were fighters, they would have protected her, or at least told her what to do. Her hands shook a little as the man began to crouch. She squeaked and pulled the trigger as his face came into view. The shot knocked him back, as the bullet hit his arm, near the joint, he grunted and fell off his balance. Eden scrambled out from under the car, feeling she had an upper hand, and turned to level the gun at the man.  
  
"Oh…" Eden looked startled as the man came into view. He looked less like a human and more like Woofy when she had been experimenting with changing single parts of her body. His hands were large, and fur covered, with wickedly curved claws for fingertips. His face tapered out to a bit of a bat-ish nose, but his ears were more wolfish. He grinned at her, the cleft of his lip separating a little to show his teeth. It wasn't the lecherous smirk that unsettled Eden, though. He should have been holding the wound, attacking her, doing something other than just standing in front of her. Even Woofy held her bullet wounds protectively.  
  
~  
  
"You're sure he's in there?" Woofy ran her fingertips over the raven's back, almost affectionately, and smoothed the blue-black feathers. It calmed her, somewhat, but the raven was indifferent.  
  
"Yes. Do nothing you may regret, Lenore." The bird's head bobbed a little, and Woofy reached over him, as it balanced on the clutch of the truck. Woofy rolled her eyes slightly at the comment and slipped her 24" wrecking bar into it's place on her leg, held in the hammer loop. She rolled down the window, and sniffed the cold, heavy sea air.  
  
She slipped out of the Chevy, and smoothed a hand over her bandanna, "I won't, Nankil'slas." Woofy pulled off her cloak, and tossed it in the window, effectively covering the raven, and hiding him from view. With a deep breath, and a quite growl she started across the small parking lot. It had been five years and a tribe since she had been to the little 'shopping center,' as the little red neon sign above the door proclaimed. She knew the little old man who ran the store quite well, but today she hoped he was out of town. The door pushed open with a little difficulty – it needed to be oiled – and the bell on the door jingled softly.  
  
There were two cash registers/checkouts, and Woofy blinked in surprise at the computer screens that had been installed during her absence. Candy and cigarettes were on a bookshelf-like wooden structure behind the little island, and it seemed it was still no great feat for any child to sneak behind and steal some of the gummy-fish that were for sale. There were five aisles, with a meat counter at the back wall, by the extensive stock of beer and liquor in glass coolers. A few heads of lettuce and other generic vegetables were along the left wall, in a four-foot long produce cooler, and waited to be replaced as no one ever bought any. Woofy sniffed again, quietly, and went to the right looking for the fomori.  
  
He stood in front of the insignificant video selection in the back corner, in a jeans and a BDGF t-shirt. Woofy's hand strayed to her crowbar as she watched him scanning the boxes. He glanced over at her, and gave her an appraising look, "You a construction worker or what?"  
  
"More like demolition, Sparky." Her lip twitched in irritation, she didn't want to make a scene here, but she could smell Eden's blood on him, dampened by the smell of cigarette smoke, snuff and booze. "Should be careful wearing that shirt out here… Black Dog ain't popular, 'less it's the ale. Might get'chyerself hurt."  
  
The fomori was about to reply when the soft, shuffling footsteps of the old proprietor made them both turn. "Well now, if it isn't Lenore." The old man smiled kindly up at her. "When did you come back to town? Visiting that sister of yours, I suppose, for her graduation. What was her name again? It was just in the paper... E something… Eden!"  
  
1 This little piggy went to market…  
  
Woofy did not stay to make conversation, as the fomori burst past her in his dash for the door at hearing Eden's name. Her moccasins slid as she tried to make the sharp turn at the head of the aisle. She leapt over the checkout counter and grabbed her wrecking bar from its place as she ran again. He had a head start on her, but she threw the crowbar at him like a javelin, a sneering grin crossed her face as his shin buckled, the bones piercing the flesh at the front of his leg, and sending him sprawling. His own momentum from the flight caused him to hit the ground hard, and he slid a long way, leaving a trail of blood and tissue behind him on the parking lot. The bone that had jutted from his leg scraped against it, and screeched on the asphalt when he ground to a stop, adding white-yellow chunks and flecks to the streak of red. Woofy had jogged behind him until stopped, at which point she grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and tore him up from the ground to toss him into the bed of her truck.  
  
"Told you." 


End file.
